Want to be an engineer on a submarine or naval ship?

Newly qualified maintenance engineer Ruth Taylor outlines the many highlights
of her training at Babcock International Group's Devonport naval base

Ruth Taylor is a maintenance engineer for Babcock International Group

By Paul Bray

7:01PM BST 06 Jun 2014

This is a big month for naval architect Ruth Taylor. On June 2, she became a fully fledged maintenance engineer and part of the Babcock International Group team that maintains the Royal Navy’s surface and submarine fleets from the huge Devonport naval base in Plymouth.

Ruth, 24, knows she is well prepared for the work ahead. Since joining Babcock in 2012, with a degree in Ship Science from the University of Southampton, she has gained extensive experience throughout Babcock’s naval business, which has helped to round out her practical education and qualify her as a professional engineer.

Her first placement was in project management within the UK’s Surface Ship Support Alliance (SSSA), the joint venture that maintains all the Navy’s surface vessels.

“It was a really good introduction, and it was fantastic to get on board so many different vessels,” says Ruth. “I discovered that this is a really hands-on job in a working dockyard, which is quite rare in the UK today.”

Next Ruth helped to redesign operating valves on mine-hunters. “My suggestions were taken forward and will now be applied to operational vessels, which is a great feeling,” she says.

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After placements in commercial, health and safety, plant management and dry docking, Ruth spent four months working on the project to support the development of the UK’s next-generation Trident submarine. “This is a fascinating project that exposed me to new methodology and ways of thinking,” she says.

This year Ruth has focused on an engineering and technical placement, working on stability tests for the newly refitted helicopter carrier HMS Ocean.

These involved heeling the ship over by several degrees using a crane – evidence of just how hands-on a naval engineer’s job can be. “Computer modelling can be very useful, but you can’t beat real-life data,” says Ruth.

Her final placement was in production, retiling and repainting the T-class submarine HMS Trenchant. “I was doing the legwork for one of the package managers, everything from organising the scaffolders and ordering materials to getting everyone together to agree how to approach the challenge.

“It was very hands-on and one of my favourite placements. I’ve had a go with almost all the tools used in the tiling process and crawled through most of the boat, and there wasn’t a day when I wasn’t in my overalls.”

As a woman in a predominantly male industry, having the dirtiest overalls can help you to be taken seriously. But Ruth has never felt disadvantaged by her gender.

“If anything I get a positive response from colleagues. If I look lost someone always comes to help, and I can probably get away with being a bit less serious than the boys – although I couldn’t if I wasn’t good at my job.”

Now Ruth can’t wait to get to grips with her new role. “I love the practical side of engineering, the fact that whenever you suggest something it has to be doable, because you’re the person who’s got to do it.

“And I like to see things in use around the dockyard and think, ‘I helped to make that happen.’ Naval vessels have such a long working life, so what I do today could still be helping people in 20 or 30 years,” she adds.